First congregations The first Baptist in Norway was Enok Richard Haftorsen Svee. Raised in a
Haugianer family in
Orkanger, he moved to
Copenhagen in 1837 to attend missionary training. There he came into contact with a group of unorganized Baptists and participated in the founding of Denmark's first Baptist congregation the following year. This was illegal at the time. Svee returned to Orkanger in 1842 and died a year later, never establishing a congregation in Norway. The
Parliament of Norway passed the Dissenter Act on 16 July 1845, allowing Christian congregations outside the
Church of Norway to be established. The Swedish Baptist
Fredrik Olaus Nilsson visited Norway several times from 1851, but his preaching was futile. Instead the Danish preacher Fredrik L. Rymker from
Odense was successful at establishing a congregation. The Danish community dispatched him to Norway to preach. He arrived in
Skien on 21 September 1857 and started preaching in the various
free churches there. He also travelled around to neighboring towns. Carl Gundersen Kongerød became the first Baptist baptized in Norway, on 25 December 1858. By 22 April 1860 there were nine Baptists in the area and the Baptist congregation in Porsgrunn and Solum was founded. Baptist Church. Rymker continued to travel and preach until 1862, funded through grants from congregations in the United States. He helped establish
Larvik Baptist Congregation on 14 November 1860 and
Kragerø Baptist Congregation on 31 August 1862. A congregation of baptists in
Levanger was founded in 1862. New preachers arrived in Norway and the cause spread throughout the 1860s.
Eidsvoll Baptist Congregation was founded on 29 August 1864 and in
Melum on 25 December 1865. Additional congregations were founded in
Arendal presumably on 14 August 1867, followed by
Bergen,
Tromsø and
Tvedestrand in 1870. Two years later congregations were established in the towns of
Langesund,
Risør and
Trondheim. Focus shifted to the capital
Kristiania (today Oslo). The Swedish pastor Sven Svensson visited the city, funded by the
Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) and helped incorporate a congregation in 1874. It became the subject of personal conflicts and part of the congregation split in favor of the
Adventist Church, and the organization was disestablished in 1880. All the congregations were established as independent denominations under the protection that the Dissenter Act provided, even if they could have as few as six members. The first national conference took place on 6 to 8 July 1877 in Bergen, with ten delegates from five congregations. For the first time the number of Baptists were calculated, totaling 511 at the end of 1867. The main organization outcome was the establishment of a committee to establish a common
Sunday school curriculum. Another outcome of the meeting was the foundation of Adelfia, an association for the pastors. . The formal decision to establish the Baptist Union of Norway was taken at the second national conference, held in Trondheim the following year. Thirteen delegates from eight congregations participated. Nine congregations joined the union; the remaining six refrained either because they were not represented at the conference or because they were feared the union would interfere in congregational affairs. The first inter-congregational bulletin was , first published by G. Hübert in 1879. Three years later the
hymnal was published. Adelfia began publishing the national newsletter in 1880. These initiatives led to the union establishing a publishing office, . The Baptist communities in Norway enjoyed close relations with BMS in England and Scandinavian expatriate congregations in the United States through the
American Baptist Missionary Union (ABMU). The latter was mostly concentrated in
Minnesota. After first establishing a common Scandinavian seminary, it split and a Norwegian–Danish seminary was established in the
Chicago community of
Morgan Park as part of the Baptist Union Theological Seminary (later to become the
University of Chicago Divinity School). This remained the main point of contact with the American Baptist community. Forty-two Norwegians attended the seminary from 1884 to 1910. The establishment of the seminary caused a close connection between the Norwegian Baptist congregations and that of the
Midwestern United States; it was the source of new inspiration. A major step took place in 1885 when pastors began to be ordained. The number of Baptist congregations reached eighteen in 1886, although the membership growth was significantly steeper with 1,335 members that year. Ten years later it had increased to 26 congregations and 2,132 members. It reached 35 congregations and 2,900 members in 1902. BMS announced in 1890 that it would withdraw all financial support for work in Norway starting in 1892. They cited that Norway no longer was seen as a missionary site, and that recruitment had leveled off. They also argued that the congregations should have the capacity to fund their own operations. The Baptist Union of Norway therefore contacted the Norwegian expatriate community. ABMU offered support to the union on the condition the Norwegians would preach in line with the American organization's theology and that Norwegian international missionaries would represent ABMU. The
Norwegian Baptist Theological Seminary was founded in 1910, allowing both pastors and missionaries to be educated domestically for the first time. Olaf J. Øie was hired as the first rector, a role he held until his death in 1943. The seminary soon offered a bachelor-level degree. A separate Norwegian mission was founded at the annual conference in 1915. Fundraising secured Bernhard Ålbu's travel to the
Belgian Congo. This was the first time that Norwegian Baptist missionaries traveled without being under the auspices of the ABMU. Due to the
First World War he was not able to travel until 1918. The effort was concentrated in the
Bas-Uele District, especially in the settlements of
Bili and
Monga. The network was gradually expanded and by the 1970s there were additional missionary stations in
Bondo,
Butu,
Likati and
Ndu. By 1945 the Congo mission had baptized 3,000 converts. The Baptist Women's Association of Norway was founded in 1916 to coordinate women's work between the congregations. This included both evangelism and missions, as well as annual seminars. The Baptist Youth Association was founded in 1922 to coordinate the activities of the youth associations in each congregation. From 1921 the local congregation operated a fishermen's home in
Honningsvåg. Another attempt to spread the word in Northern Norway took place through the "skerries mission". Boats were used to reach coastal hamlets without regular church services. Along with the
Baptist Union of Denmark and the
Baptist Union of Sweden, the Norwegian union established a congregation in
San Francisco, the Scandinavian Seamen Mission in 1946. Many of the smallest congregations had problems funding both a church and the pastor's wages. In some congregations this was solved by only hiring the pastor part-time, or having them funded through their spouse working. In any case wages were comparatively low for the education. From the 1960s a "wage fund" was created, whereby larger congregations subsidized the wages of pastors in smaller congregations. The Baptist Study Council was established in 1972 to publish study circles.
Oppdal Baptist Congregation left the union in 1986. During the mid-1980s the union experienced major economic problems and a large deficit. The congress of the European Baptist Federation was hosted in
Lillehammer in 1994, with the union as the organizer. Four thousand delegates participated at the event at
Håkons Hall. The union launched its website on 19 February 1996. was reorganized in 2004 and changed from a weekly newspaper to a monthly magazine. It took the name
Baptist.no in 2009. Oslo Third Baptist Congregation was excluded from the union in 2006 after it had elected a member living in a same-sex partnership to its board. After decades with stagnating membership, the Baptist community experienced rising membership numbers and increasing number of congregations from the late 2000s. The Norwegian Baptist Seminary was reorganized in 2008. It merged with the Pentecostal Center for Leadership and Theology to form the Norwegian School of Leadership and Theology. It was accredited as a college and was situated at the Baptist complex at Stabekk. ==Organization==